Reappearance
by LaraCroftTR65
Summary: Sherlock reappeared mysteriously after the Reichenbach Fall and terrified John. He liked it so much that now he keeps disappearing and reappearing just to scare John. This was just written for a bit of fun. It's not serious at all :) Based on Shocking Blanket's awesome artwork :)
1. Chapter 1

Since Sherlock had mysteriously reappeared in their apartment at 221B Baker Street, he had been even more difficult to live with than before.

He had been so thrilled at the shock John suffered through at his reappearance, he had decided to keep 'disappearing' and 'reappearing' in strange places just to scare John. It was like playing a never-ending game of hide and seek with an over-grown child. Except that Sherlock was too clever. He knew some brilliant places to hide, and he knew exactly how to reappear to make John jump.

And the most annoying thing was that it worked. Every time.

John had tried to keep a close eye on Sherlock, giving him less time to escape, but it didn't work. Sherlock was just too good at this game.

John was typing on his laptop, his eyes drifting from his blog every so often to the consulting detective, who sat cross-legged on the sofa, eyes closed, clasping his fingers together under his chin. Sherlock was so quiet, so still that he almost appeared to be made of stone. The only thing that assured John that he was in fact, still alive, was the gentle rising and falling of his chest as he breathed silently.

John relaxed a little and continued typing. He had only typed a few sentences before he looked up again.

Sherlock was nowhere to be seen.

'Sherlock?' John called, glancing behind himself into the kitchen. Sherlock wasn't there making tea as John had hoped.

'Sherlock?' he called louder, but he was still greeted by the same eerie silence.

John sighed in exasperation and dropped his head back against his chair.

'Not again, Sherlock,' he groaned, knowing that the curly haired nutter could probably still hear him. He could probably still see him too.

'Sherlock, I'm not in the mood for this,' John grumbled.

'When are you ever?' Sherlock's voice echoed through the flat. John glanced around anxiously, but it was impossible to pinpoint where his voice was coming from.

John sighed again.

'Fine,' he snapped. 'Stay in your bloody hiding place all night if you want to. I'm not looking for you!'

Sherlock said nothing in return.

'How the hell did he disappear without me hearing him? Or seeing him?' John thought to himself, but he was beginning to give himself a migraine just by contemplating how Sherlock did anything.

John turned his attention back to his blog. He thought about beginning a new entry; Hide and Seek with the Sociopath, but decided against it. He wanted to finish typing up their latest case, and telling the world about Sherlock's antics would only give him the attention he wanted. It would probably encourage him and make him even more unbearable.

About three quarters of an hour later, John finished updating his blog. He grinned proudly at his latest adventure with Sherlock, before closing the lap top.

He flicked on the tv and stretched in his seat, relaxing his cramped muscles. He was a little stiff for sitting in the same position for so long.  
He rubbed his tired eyes and yawned. 'I'll make a nice cup of tea, and then just pack it in,' he thought to himself, dragging himself from his seat towards the kitchen.

The kettle boiled and John poured the boiling water over the teabag, into the mug. He stirred it and threw the old tea bag in the bin.

He walked to the fridge to get milk and yelled when he opened the fridge.  
Sherlock was sitting inside the fridge, grinning goofily at John, as John tried to regain control of his heart rate, which was thumping wildly against his chest.

'Sherlock! What the bloody hell are you doing in the fridge?' John demanded furiously.

'Reappearing, obviously,' Sherlock stated simply, still grinning at John's horrified expression.

'In the fridge?'

'Obviously,' Sherlock repeated slowly, his brows knitting together in confusion.

John sighed. 'I know that you're in the fridge. I meant why are you in the fridge?' he tried again, slower.

'Oh.' Sherlock regained his smile. 'Because you didn't expect it,' he said, as if it was the most obvious explanation.

John dropped his head in surrender and sighed exasperatedly.

'Wait,' he said, raising his head to face Sherlock, who still sat inside the fridge. 'Where's all the food?'

'In some coolers. Don't worry,' he said when John opened his mouth to protest. 'I'll bring it back,' he said, rolling his eyes.

'Sherlock, this...I mean...oh, never mind. I'm going to bed.' John turned and shuffled upstairs to his room. Sherlock heard the door shut and grinned to himself before leaping out of the fridge.


	2. Chapter 2

John had gone to the library to get some peace. Sherlock was bored and that was never a good thing. He would end up conducting an experiment, probably on John if he stayed for long enough, so he had gotten out early.

John had warned him though that when he came home, the wall had better still be intact.

'I mean it, Sherlock. I don't want any more bullet holes in the wall.'

The consulting detective was lying on the sofa with his eyes closed, but somehow, John could still feel him rolling his eyes.

'I told you, the wall had it coming,' Sherlock sighed dramatically.

'I don't care if it did. No guns, okay?'

Sherlock hasn't replied and John grabbed his coat and left before he began whatever it was that Sherlock did when he was bored. It was impossible to predict what John might return home to. He pushed the disturbing thought from his mind and turned his attention back to the row of crime books in front of him.

John walked down the aisle, glancing at book covers.

He saw one that he liked the sound of and pulled it out from the shelf.

'Hello John.'

John yelled and stumbled backwards, tripping over his feet and landing hard on the ground. He pulled half the shelf of books down on top of himself as he fell.

'Sherlock!' he spat in a harsh whisper, glaring angrily at the curly haired detective who stood on the other side of the shelf. Or at least, glaring at his blue eyes, which is all John could see of him through the gap between the shelves.

'What the hell are you doing here?' seethed John from under a pile of books.

'I followed you. I was bored,' Sherlock said simply.

'You'll get us kicked out,' John tried.

'You were the one that screamed, not me,' Sherlock replied matter-of-factly.

John pushed the books off himself and put his hand on the shelf to pull himself up.

'Well, help me tidy these up,' John said, bending to pick up the books.

But when he looked up, Sherlock had disappeared again.

'Sherlock,' John hissed through gritted teeth, and placed the books back on the shelf.


	3. Chapter 3

'Lestrade, if he's left handed, he's your man,' Sherlock told the policeman confidently.

'Are you just making this up?' Lestrade asked, eyeing the consulting detective suspiciously.

Sherlock rolled his eyes. 'I'm giving you a clue. It's up to you whether you listen.' He turned and walked away from the crime scene, his coat collar turned up against his neck, disappearing into the darkness of the night.

'If I were you,' he called back over his shoulder, 'I'd take it.'

John looked apologetically at Lestrade.

'Sorry about him,' he apologised.

Lestrade shook his head and gave John a shrug that said 'What are you going to do?'

John peered over his shoulder after the tall, dark figure of his friend evaporating into the dark street.

'I suppose I'd better go after him,' John said to Lestrade.

'Yeah, quickly before you lose him. You never know where he would end up,' Lestrade replied, nodding after Sherlock.

'God, tell me about it,' John sighed, turning after Sherlock.

'Sherlock!' he yelled, jogging down the street after the detective.

The figure in front of him did not slow and John had to almost run to catch up with Sherlock.

'You need to stop just leaving like that,' John berated him.

'Why would I waste my time by staying?' Sherlock asked seriously. 'I gave him his clue and now it has nothing to do with me, so why shouldn't I leave?' He glanced down at John with a confused expression, tinged with annoyance.

John opened his mouth to argue and then decided against it.

'Never mind,' he said, dropping Sherlock's gaze in defeat.

Sherlock cocked his head sideways curiously, watching John for a few seconds, contemplating what it was that John had been going to say. Then he turned his attention in front of him again, deleting the conversation from his hard drive.

John glanced back over his shoulder to Lestrade and the crime scene, falling a few steps behind Sherlock again.

Sherlock turned a corner a few feet in front of John, but a few seconds later when John turned the corner, there was no Sherlock.

John stared in amazement at the empty street.

'How the bloody hell does he do that?' he exclaimed to no one in particular.

He walked up and down the road, checking in any shops, peering through windows, but there was no sign of Sherlock.

After checking the street for the third time, John gave up. Obviously, Sherlock did not want to be found.

'He would have made a bloody good magician,' John grumbled to himself, stomping down the street and hailing a taxi.

'Baker Street,' John said as he climbed in, figuring that he might as well go home. Sherlock would turn up eventually.

John clambered up the stairs back into the apartment. He fumbled for the keys in his pocket and let himself in. He swung the door closed behind him and took his coat off. Then he turned to throw it on the coat hook and he yelled.

Sherlock was hanging from the coat hook on the back of the door, smiling childishly down at John.

'Sherlock!' John shouted furiously, clutching his coat protectively.

The detective just laughed and unhooked himself, landing stealthily on the floor like a cat and sauntered over to his chair.


	4. Chapter 4

It had been about a fortnight since Sherlock had last disappeared. John was beginning to think that maybe he had outgrown his childish game. Maybe he had become bored with it, as Sherlock inevitably does with most things. Maybe, just maybe he had moved on.

Sherlock was sprawled across the sofa, turned in so that his back was to John. He sighed and kicked the arm rest, rolling on to his back and stared blankly at the ceiling, dropping his arm over the side of the sofa.

'Bored?' John asked noncommittally, without turning his attention from the show on tv which he was absorbed in.

'Extremely,' Sherlock groaned. 'I need a case, John,' he complained, running his hands through his dark curls.

'Lestrade told you all the cases he has,' John reminded him, raising his eyebrows.

'Ugh, those were boring. They were transparent.'

John snorted and shook his head.

The flat fell silent. There was not a sound except for the tv blaring in the background. John was drawn back into the show and Sherlock remained bored on the sofa.

The reverie only lasted for a few minutes before Sherlock's voice ripped through it.

'John.'

'What?' he mumbled.

'I need some.'

'No, Sherlock.'

'Get me some.'

'No.'

'John!'

'Sherlock!'

Sherlock glared furiously at John, his blue eyes narrowed and his lips pressed into thin, white lines. John pretended not to notice.

Sherlock growled in disgust and flipped over on to his stomach, burying his head in the sofa.

'Give me a patch then,' Sherlock's distorted demand came.

'I think you're becoming addicted to those. Can't you last without one?' John asked concernedly.

'Just give me a patch,' Sherlock repeated angrily.

'Sorry, I think you're all out,' John told the detective, checking the empty box on the table.

A muffled sigh came from Sherlock's direction.

There was another short silence before Sherlock piped up.

'What about Cluedo?'

'No!' John protested hastily.

'Fine,' Sherlock snapped, bolting up out of his chair. He stormed towards the door, fury crashing from him in dark waves.

'Where are you going?' John called after him.

'Upstairs,' he replied bluntly.

'What for?'

'Experiment.'

'No guns, Sherlock. Or severed heads.'

The only response he got was the slam of Sherlock's bedroom door.

An hour and a half later and John had completely forgotten that Sherlock was in the flat. He had enjoyed his evening, relaxing quietly in front of the tv with no case and no Sherlock complaining, or yelling, or correcting the tv or John. It was nice for a change to be able to watch a movie without having every hole in the plot pointed out.

'John, dear, there's some men here with a parcel for you,' Mrs Hudson called up the stairs.

'Oh, thanks,' he replied. He didn't remember ordering anything.

'Must be Sherlock's,' he thought, shuddering at the thought of what could be in the box.

Two men came traipsing up the stairs, carrying a large cardboard box between them. They set it in the middle of the living room, and one handed John a register to sign.

John thanked them and the men plodded off downstairs again.

He stared at the box unsurely. It was probably something for one of Sherlock's experiments. John wasn't sure he even wanted to know what was in the box. But what if it was something bad? If Sherlock got it into his room, John would never be able to get rid of it.

'Maybe I should open it and see,' he thought. 'If it's something Sherlock shouldn't have, I can get rid of it easily now,' he reassured himself.

'Yeah, that's what I'll do,' he decided.

John went to the kitchen and got a knife to slit open the tape. He cut it open and reached forward to open the flaps, but Sherlock got there first, jumping out from inside the box.

'Ahh!' John yelled, stumbling backwards and clutching his chest. His heart was thumping against his chest and he was breathing heavily.

'Sherlock!' he shouted breathlessly.

Sherlock stood in the box and laughed.

'Oh, John, you really make this far too easy,' he chuckled, putting his hands in his pockets.

'You...I mean...you're...' John stammered, all the angry thoughts he wanted to scream at Sherlock getting jumbled up in his throat.

'Really, I can't believe you fell for this one, though. It's the oldest trick in the book,' Sherlock grinned arrogantly, climbing out of the box.

'You're bloody nuts! You posted yourself to the flat?'

Sherlock shot a disgusted look at John. 'Don't be stupid. I climbed in downstairs and had them carry me up.'

John paused as it clicked together in his mind.

'They were part of your homeless network, the deliverers,' he said slowly.

'Great work, John,' Sherlock said patronisingly before flopping back down on the sofa where he had been an hour and a half ago.

'At least I'm not bored anymore,' Sherlock smiled.


	5. Chapter 5

The door to 221B Baker Street creaked open. Sherlock pushed his way through and set something on the ground with a soft thud, but John didn't look up.

'Well, that was tedious,' Sherlock sighed and John lifted his gaze from his laptop. Sherlock was standing with a harpoon, completely splattered with blood. It was splashed all across his light coloured shirt and his trousers. It was even sloshed across his face and his hair, matting his dark curls. He looked like he had just stepped out of a horror film.

'You went on the tube like that?' John exclaimed, wondering how Sherlock hadn't been arrested for murder on his way home.

'None of the cabs would take me,' he replied in a disgusted tone. The consulting detective span around with his harpoon and walked towards the door again.

'Sherlock, wait!' John called. 'You have to wash that.'

Sherlock stopped and peeked his head back around the door.

'What? Why?' he asked, confusion creeping across his blood-stained face.

'You can't just leave it like that,' John protested.

'Like what?'

'That,' John motioned to all of Sherlock. 'Covered in blood.'

'It was an experiment for a case,' Sherlock explained in a miffed tone.

'Go and get changed. You have to wash those clothes,' John said sternly.

'Oh John,' Sherlock shook his head sadly and turned from the room.

'I mean it, Sherlock!' John yelled after him. 'And get the blood off your face and hair too!'  
Sherlock's amused chuckle echoed back into the room.

John sighed and sank back into his chair. He rubbed the bridge of his nose and shook his head, moving his attention back to his laptop.

Five minutes later, Sherlock swept back into the room in his pyjamas and dark blue dressing gown. He dropped the bloody shirt and trousers in John's lap, smirking and glided back out of the room again.

'Sherlock!' John shouted.

'Hmm?' Sherlock poked his head back into the room.

'Wash them,' he said, indicating the clothes that were in his lap.

'Sorry John, I have to wash me,' Sherlock said smugly, raising an eyebrow at John cockily before disappearing again.

'Sherlock!' John seethed through his teeth.

John looked at the clothes in his lap.

'Fine,' he sighed, dropping his head in defeat.

John carried the bloody clothes to the washing machine and dumped them inside.

'I just hope that all comes out,' he said tiredly. 'Mrs Hudson would have a fit if she saw that.'

Later on, John was hanging the washing out the back. He picked out Sherlock's shirt and hung it over the line, checking it for blood stains. It seemed clean enough to him.

John tugged the line over and hung Sherlock's trousers up next.

He pulled the line sideways again and jumped.

Sherlock appeared from behind one of the towels on the line.

'Stop doing that!' John yelled, clenching his fists.

'Doing what?' Sherlock asked innocently.

'You know what I mean.'

'I was just coming to see how the cleaning was going,' Sherlock smirked. 'As you can see, I'm clean again.'

'Very good, Sherlock,' John replied dryly.

'By the way, there's still a little blood on the shirt,' Sherlock pointed out casually and swept inside again.

John sighed and dropped his head.

'Thanks, Sherlock.'


	6. Chapter 6

'When was the last time you ate?' John asked the figure pacing up and down the living room of 221B.

Sherlock paced with his hands placed together under his chin, muttering to himself, his piercing blue eyes flitting about the room as if they were actually following his thoughts through the air.

Sherlock continued to pace, not even bothering to look at John as he answered, 'What day is it?'

'Wednesday,' John replied, watching Sherlock from his chair.

'Then it's two days,' Sherlock answered quickly, immediately beginning to mutter under his breath again.

'Sherlock, you have to eat,' John scolded him.

'I need to work,' Sherlock said bluntly. 'Everything else is just transport.'

'You still have to eat.'

'Transport.'

'Come on. We'll go to the Chinese,' John attempted to coax Sherlock from his reverie.

'I'm busy,' he stated, still refusing to break his pace.

'Sherlock,' John said in a warning tone.

'Oh shut up,' Sherlock snapped. 'I'm trying to think.'

'You'll pass out. Again,' John reminded him.

Sherlock rolled his eyes. 'You're not going to let me think until I have eaten, are you?'

'That's the plan,' he shrugged, a devious smile spreading across his face.

Sherlock sighed and pulled his coat on, turning the collar up around his neck.

'Well, come on then,' he ushered John impatiently, bustling out of the door.  
John smiled and dragged himself from his arm chair, pulling his coat on and raced out after Sherlock.

Sherlock sat across from John, tapping his fingers impatiently on the table top. His eyes flitted around the room, taking in everyone and everything. John knew this expression. This kind of energy meant that Sherlock was thinking. He was a completely different person when he had a case; far more energetic than the bored, case-less Sherlock. He underwent some sort of transformation, rarely stopping during a case, even to eat or sleep. John had known him to go for days without food or rest, and as a doctor, he often reprimanded Sherlock for these periods, but it did no good. Sherlock wouldn't listen.

'Sherlock,' John broke through his train of thoughts. 'Relax. The world won't end if you stop for dinner.'

Sherlock glared at John angrily and said nothing, continuing to tap the table agitatedly.

John raised his eyebrows, amused, and grinned a little.

'What do you want?' he asked Sherlock, scanning his menu.

'Mmm, that,' Sherlock said, pointing to the menu without looking at it. John sighed as he peered over to see what Sherlock was pointing to.

'How about you just get what you had last time?' John suggested.

'Hmm? Why?' Sherlock asked inattentively.

'Because you've picked prawn crackers,' John replied tiredly, putting his menu down.

'Oh,' Sherlock blew it off, still staring into the distance.

'Can I leave now?' Sherlock asked, pushing his empty plate forward to make sure John saw it.

John smiled to himself. Sherlock really was like a big kid sometimes.

'Don't you want dessert?' John asked teasingly.

Sherlock sighed and stood up.

'I'm leaving.'

He grabbed his coat and swept out of the restaurant, turning his coat collar up as he went.

John laughed as he watched Sherlock disappear.

'Well, I'm having some,' he mumbled to himself.

John stumbled into 221B about twenty minutes later. He looked into the living room but found that Sherlock wasn't there.

'Sherlock?' he called. 'Sherlock?'

John went upstairs towards Sherlock's room.

'He must be up here,' he thought to himself. John just wanted to make sure he was okay. There was no telling what could happen to Sherlock if he was left alone for any length of time.

'Sherlock?' John called again, cautiously opening the detective's bedroom door.

It was pitch black inside. John felt around for the light switch and flicked it on.

'Jesus!' he exclaimed as the light illuminated the room. Sherlock was hanging in a harness from the fan in his room, spinning slowly as the fan moved.

'Hello John,' he replied coolly.

'What are you doing?' John asked in a nettled tone.

'Solving a case. Obviously,' Sherlock replied, rolling his eyes at John's naivety with his case.

'In the dark?' John demanded.

'That was an extra detail,' Sherlock explained.

'For me, right?' John asked, sighing.

Sherlock smiled in response.


	7. Chapter 7

Sherlock sat at the desk, searching through piles of paper, newspaper cuttings, results from the autopsy, chemistry textbooks. Presently, he lifted down one of the textbooks from the ever-growing pile that was strewn across his desk and flicked about halfway through it. He buried his nose into and sighed.

'No, it's not here.'

He shut the text book and dropped it on the floor beside him.

'Where is it?' he muttered to himself, rifling through the papers that had swamped his desk.

In John's opinion, it was a miracle if Sherlock could find anything on that desk.

John sat idly in his chair, watching Sherlock frantically search his desk for whatever it was he was looking for. By now, John knew better than to ask.  
Sherlock's agitation seemed to grow.

He vented a frustrated groan and dropped his head into hands.

'It doesn't make sense. Somewhere in here,' he jabbed viciously at the loose pages scattered about, 'is the answer. I must be staring right at it!' he snarled irately.

'Sherlock, just take a break,' John sighed calmly. 'You haven't slept in God knows how long, and obviously you're tired. Even the great Sherlock Holmes needs sleep,' he reprimanded.

'Oh God, that again,' Sherlock moaned, although the sound was muffled by his hands as his head was still buried in his hands.

'Yes, that again,' John snapped. 'You need sleep. Just take a break. Take a nap on the sofa. It's not going to kill you.'

Sherlock sighed and ran his hands back and forth through his curls. Then he fell still. It was so silent that John had thought he might have fallen asleep at the desk, resting on his hands.

Suddenly Sherlock snapped back to life, a gleam twinkling in his pale blue eyes that seemed to be fuelling him, like someone had just thrown coal on a fire.

'Oh,' he whispered in awe, staring into space and clapping his hands in front of him, making John jump.

'Of course. Stupid!' he hissed at himself, his face contorting into the picture of self-deprication.

Sherlock bounced up and grabbed his coat, flinging it and his scarf on haphazardly.

'Where are you off to?' John hated how much he sounded like a parent scolding a teenager who was sneaking out to a party.

'Out,' Sherlock replied, preoccupied with his current train of thought.

'Sherlock, you need sleep. You'll collapse,' John argued pointedly.

A muffled 'later' wormed its way back into the flat as the door shut behind the energetic flurry of activity that was Sherlock Holmes.

John let out an angry sigh and snapped his laptop shut. He grappled his coat down from the peg on the back of the door and shrugged it on, chasing after Sherlock into the dimly lit streets.

John spent the next few hours of his night attempting to find Sherlock. The only problem was he had no idea where to look. Trying to follow Sherlock's train of thought was almost impossible, unless of course you had Sherlock to explain it step by step and walk you through it.

He kept his phone out, texting Sherlock, ringing Sherlock, but he got no answer. Not that he had expected any differently.

'The idiot's probably collapsed from sleep exhaustion in an alley. Again,' John thought to himself, feeling slightly nettled. It was like trying to keep a four year old child, except Sherlock had money and a credit card, meaning he could get further than the four year old.

'I'm going to have to put a leash on him. He's always disappearing,' John sighed.

He called Lestrade to see if Sherlock was there, but Lestrade hadn't seen him.

He tried Molly to see if Sherlock was at the morgue, but the only thing that call resulted in was making Molly anxious.

'Is he okay?' she asked nervously.

'I'm sure he's fine. You know what he's like,' John said, trying to comfort her a little.

'Are you sure, though? I mean, what if he -?'

'Molly, he'll be fine. I'll text you when I find him, okay?'

That was enough to get Molly to hang up the phone, but secretly John could imagine her planning an entire search and rescue mission already.

Next he tried Mycroft, more in the hope that he had been spying on Sherlock and had seen where he went. He knew that Sherlock wouldn't voluntarily turn up to see Mycroft, not unless he really needed something. Even then, he would probably call instead.

Mycroft had heard no word either.

'You know how dramatic he can be. I'm sure he'll turn up,' were his exact words.

John had walked up and down every side alley with several miles of their flat before he decided to call it a night. There was no way he could track Sherlock's thoughts.

'Besides, he's a grown man,' John grumbled. 'If he wants to keep disappearing, he can find his own way home again.'

John hailed a taxi and made his way back to Baker Street. Sherlock had been gone for three hours. This wasn't unusual, but since he hadn't slept in three or fours day, John still couldn't help but think he might have collapsed.

He sighed as he opened the door, wondering if he should go back out again, when he froze.

There, lying on the sofa, was Sherlock, reappeared, sleeping and still fully dressed. He still wore his long, black coat and his shoes were still on, but he was curled up into a small ball on the sofa, breathing softly. His mouth was hanging slightly open and his curls had tumbled across his forehead, enforcing an almost child-like innocence about him.

John rolled his eyes and smirked.

'Well, at least he didn't jump out at me this time.'


End file.
